Formations

It is hard to find teams lining up with five defenders or one striker, especially at the top of FPL rankings. ‘3-4-3’, ‘4-4-2’, ‘3-5-2’, and ‘4-3-3’ dominate the formation choice. The default choice of ‘4-4-2’ makes it popular among casuals, the vast majority of top teams prefer to play with 3 defenders at the back.

Being the default choice, ‘4-4-2’ dominated the FPL overall league in GW 1. As soon as many newbies realised that it’s not the only option and that ‘3-4-3’ and ‘3-5-2’ were more exciting prospects, its popularity decreased and stabilised at roughly 30% with occasional sparks when something short-term happened to a popular forward like Diego Costa in GW 14, Charlie Austin in GW 16, or Harry Kane in GW 27.

Up top, these trends were even easier to observe. Those newbies who initially succeeded with ‘4-4-2’ were quickly squeezed out by ‘3-4-3’ adherents during the first few weeks. After that ‘3-4-3’ became a default choice for 80%-90% top 10K teams with occasional deviations caused by short-term injuries, suspensions, or rotation of a cheap striker with a midfielder.

As a result, an average formation was roughly ‘3.5 – 4 – 2.5’ in FPL in general and ‘3.15 – 4.10 – 2.75’ up top.

The ‘3.5 – 4 – 2.5’ formation of FPL in general was pretty stable over the season.

The ‘3.15 – 4.1 – 2.75’ of top 10K was less stable because top managers actively responded to short-term factors affecting highly owned players in a similar manner.